[Xabre]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/warpath-the-sci-fi-battle-game/description

For those of you who are familiar with Mantic games, they run Kickstarter a LOT. This time they're running a game called Firefight, which is based off their Warpath rules, which borrows heavily from our favorite grimdark and fantasy stuff.

From what I gather, not being a real Mantic player myself, Firefight is larger scale than Deadzone, closer to large scale 40k than anything else.

Warpath - core sci-fi rules
Deadzone - more like Kill team or Mordheim
Firefight - more complex large scale rules

As always, their goals were broken in hours, and they're on to some awesome looking stretch goals.

They currently are focusing on Enforcers, which are their high-tech Marines, Forgefathers, which are Space Dwarves, and Ver-myyn, which are space rats.

Current stretch goal is going to try and get Plague in there, which are... space zombies? Sort of. Something like that mixed with Chaos corruption. of course I'm just analogizing to 40k.

The standard pledge of $125 USD is going to get you 3 rule books, dice, markers, and then either a 2-person starter set (3/4 5-man troops, a 5-man specialist squad, a unique character, and a small vehicle or 2) from Enforcers and Forgefathers, OR a large group, which right now is a good-sized army for a small price. You can even choose for your large group a sexy-looking flier formation, which look like the love child between a Stormraven and a Tau aircraft.

 

[Khorne's Fist]

I'm all for small start-ups using KS as a means getting their product developed and breaking into the market. But larger well established companies looking for their fans and existing customers to fund their expansions? I call BS on it.

 

[Kreuger]

...I call BS on it.

I have no idea what Mantic's financials look like or even how big a company they actually are. So I don't knew whether this really is b.s. or not.

What I am certain of, is that as a method for marketing and scaling this is only going to become more prevalent.

Think about this way. A kickstarter campaign allows a company to gauge interest and sell units before they even go on sale. So not only can they get a sense for what the market can handle but it takes all the startup risk out of expanding.

It's basically the same opt in marketing that OnePlus is using for their phones.

It reduces the risk in trying something new. It reduces the risk in sinking too much money into a production run. And it builds and capitalizes on customer interest.

It's a far more efficient way to do business than the traditional model. So even if it seems like b.s. there's really sound logic behind it.

 

[bitsandkits]

I'm all for small start-ups using KS as a means getting their product developed and breaking into the market. But larger well established companies looking for their fans and existing customers to fund their expansions? I call BS on it.

i have to agree, kickstarter was supposed to be a tool for start ups who couldnt get traditional funding for there ideas, banks and investors were not taking risks after the crash happened, the clue is in the name"Kickstarter" the crowd gives you enough to get you started and up and running, Mantic are just pre-selling, which they could do via there own store, but the way of doing seems to have really stuck with the wargame crowd for some reason??, despite a few high profile cases that have collapsed and funders loosing money, i personally cant see the attraction, i cant understand why people would make a purchase based on concept art and 3d renders of minis and i cant understand why they would hand over cash for the promise of delivery of an undeveloped product upto 12 months away, seems weird to me?

in mantics case though i could see why they do it, they flogged initial KOW ranges to every man and dog they could, to get a foot hold in the market, under the pretense that there stuff was as good as GW and cheaper and that the sales would be huge! , that didnt happen and alot of distributors and re sellers dropped the range quickly(i had two offer me there entire stock for peanuts) and they had marked there card before they started on the scifi games, so this really is there only option.